Model Employee

Hi! The linux version's dialogue seems to be broken. After starting the game the Old Timer's text never plays, and clicking the quick save button makes the rest of the UI unclickable

Mild Spoilers:

I love the illusion of choice this game presented, first time playing it I thought the game would have a "good ending" and make connections with your co-workers but the world doesn't like that. I hope everyone who worked on the game as much fun creating as I had playing it!

Sorry if my English isn't good (it isn't my first language).

Congratulations on taking home the Spooktober win!! 🏆

A harrowing look into a distinctly possible future where AI and hyper-capitalism with no regard for morality and human life reign supreme.

Gonna hide the rest due to spoilers:

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Having done multiple playthroughs to see different endings, I appreciate how even most of the "choices" players do actually get the opportunity to make don't change the outcome or even the subsequent dialogue at all, really hammering home how powerless the MC is (starting from the very beginning, where mods and a massive medical bill were foisted upon them without permission or consultation).

I love the amount of care and detail that went into the UI, including the way the UI itself is a story element, further feeding into a sense of hopelessness and external locus of control.

The characters are well-written and multi-faceted, which was a pleasant surprise from their first impressions.  Penny is definitely a stand out, and almost feels like the epitome of a twisted corrupt VTuber whose sole goal is to extort and exploit their followers, despite (initially) coming off as cute, innocent, "helpful," and flirty, so it was fun seeing to what lengths she would go to maintain this façade, as well as how drastically her answers shifted when answering "Honestly".

The story was also excellently crafted.  As soon as I found out that Sharpe already had 2 strikes, I knew where the story was heading long-term, which didn't make being railroaded (heh) into it any less horrifying... although I'm glad that Riley survived!  She's one of my favourite characters, so that was a pleasant surprise.

(Also, how the hell did you manage to make this game while also writing for protoViolence within the same month?!?1?one)

The (animated) backgrounds, animations, CGs, cinematography, music and SFX are all really well done and super polished, and collectively amount to a really immersive experience, so amazing job!  It also really highlights some of the advantages of using NaniNovel and Unity over other engines, such as RenPy.

I did run into that bug where the game freezes the first time running it, although amusingly, it let me open the Save window, but then froze when trying to save, lol. Fortunately, I didn't even have to restart my computer to get it working — closing and relaunching the game did the trick.

Re: the itch.io page design, the top portion looks awesome!  But as soon as I scroll down below the page fold and the background gears animation is gone, I'm "greeted" by super bright yellow on either side of the centre column, making my eyes bleed. >_<;

One minor game-related UX issue: in terms of (pure) keyboard accessibility, I was able to use the ↑ arrow key to navigate to the choices in the center, but for whatever reason, using the ← and → arrow keys didn't let me switch choices, so if I had been exclusively using KB to play, I'd be forced into only picking the leftmost choice (and I don't recall how that worked in instances where the leftmost choice was forcibly disabled).  I don't recall which version number I played, but it was an earlier version.  So disregard this if it's since been fixed.

In terms of optimization, 1 GB is absolutely massive for a jam game, so I'm curious what could be done with file type conversions and file compression (lossless or even partially lossy) to shrink that down a bit with minimal to no noticeable drop in quality.

As an aside, holy hell, it seems impossible to find YouTube videos of this game outside of the itch.io comments, because of the game name. Sadge... :')

Fantastic job to everyone on the team, and again, massive congrats on the big win!!

Petition for this game to be played by Bezos and other CEOs in order to reflect on the world they are building.

I appreciated the writing, and the smart use of the honest answer option on “not AI” Penny! Love her personality and the way her eyes change with hearts and dollar signs.

The line “a lot of nice guys…it’s like they wait their whole lives for the right haircut, the right-fitting suit” got me too. Hope my corporate bf doesn’t turn out like that LOL

(Also the term wetware for regular human body is great!)

Hehe this is especially cool to see since I wrote a VN before with obstructive UI about a streamer from the future, really cool to see the concept explored in a different way!

LOVED THIS! Everything from the purposefully overstimulating UI to the story that kept me invested. Only had the time to get one ending, but definitely want to revisit this after October to fully explore and get other ends. 

Also Penny is like super super cute. I'm totally biased design and personality wise. 10/10 would let Penny "help me" again. 🤞

I do want to play the game. I keep running into a bug where it freezes at the old man's dialogue at the start of the game. All he says is He for the windows version of the game. Did I download it wrong or something?

That's a fun story about a broken AI that doesn't understand labour theory of value and goes right for eugenics instead! Could it be there was a human secretly controlling her this whole time?

Anyway, thank you for your effort! I really love when people put their soul into the work, the music was great, I'd even listen to it by itself. The personalities were also fun, relatable, and cutely drawn, and I'm sure I would appreciate it even more if I could ever choose them over mommy Penny, since being strong is all I could ever dream of. The only regret was that I didn't get to kill Riley. Maybe if I answered everything before that perfectly, there could be an ending that allowed me to do that?

Very well done horror visual novel! The prose is polished and the story is genuinely creepy.

I had some issues loading saves (text wouldn’t proceed unless there was a choice to make at the save), so there are a couple of bugs, but still a great job!

Lol though I am soft-hearted, so I was hoping for one happy ending where the MC quits the job

(I don't speak English very well, this is a machine translation, I hope it's understandable.)

Penny's influence is subtle, and although I guessed early on that something was wrong, I couldn't help but pick all the options that favored her.

Although there are no traditional "horror" scenes, many of the later episodes and scenes are still creepy in another way, and some of the small details, performances, and contrasts between the episodes in the game are really interesting.

The art is also fantastic.

Unfortunately there are a bit too many bugs... The frozen text at the beginning stuck me for ages, and LOAD causes the display ui of the MC view (should I be able to say that? It's the ones that show weather, time, power, money) to disappear.

I had to check this one out after reading the page cos the story summary kinda reminded me of a film I watched earlier this year called Lapsis (which I recommend giving a watch if you enjoyed playing this game!) Having just reached an ending, I'd say it has very similar vibes to Lapsis, but also kinda like crossed with the Black Mirror episode titled Fifteen Million Merits (both of which I love ^-^) and then, of course, its own original spin on that sort of story in the vein of corporate greed and taking advantage of those most in need. 

Presenting it in such a colourful and funky style of art only served to make the bleak exploitation even grimmer in a great way, haha.

Definitely hope I never find myself in this scenario in reality xD I have already heard the horror stories that poor Amazon workers live through >.<

I decided to check this game out after watching a streamer play it, and have gotten all of the endings! I agree with everyone saying this is the type of quality I would expect to pay for. This is such effective horror, not in small part due to how based in real life it is.

I have one criticism and one criticism only: I would have liked to know that the selfie I chose at the start of the game would affect how I would be gendered. Maybe I could have assumed, but it seems to be getting popular to have ungendered appearance options, and have the player character referred to neutrally. Like the latest Splatoon, for example! It would've been nice to have had some sort of indicator that it will change how the character is referred to.

Other than that small nitpick, this game is REALLY excellent. I can totally see it taking off, if the stars align right. Phenomenal work!

Edit: I forgot, I wanted to talk about a glitch I found. Sometimes, when I quick save and then quick load on a screen with a choice, when I load it, it just shows the previous dialogue, and the choice doesn't come up. You aren't able to progress any further when this happens, to my knowledge.

This game is tied with OFF as my all time favorite game. The story is very interesting and the visuals are exactly what I like.

what an excellent experience model employee was. as a fan of visual novels, i was stunned by this game. honestly? i can't believe it was free. this level of quality is something i would pay for.

the visual style and characters were great. the plot was interesting, short, sweet, and honestly hit home for myself and my audience a lot more than i thought it would! this satirically captures the horror of capitalism. the future in this game is, in my opinion, a realistic one. 

i played the game on my twitch channel. if you'd like to catch my play through and live reactions to the game, please watch this video!

(gameplay starts at 30:40)

Went into this blind and was thoroughly impressed by the quality of the game. Writing, characters, style, all is top notch. Played with a friend and we both genuinely laughed out loud/gasped to each other at some moments. Eerie in a way that is completely unexpected and fun. Would pay actual $ to support this game tbh 

What an amazing game! Everything is so well thought out, from the claustrophobic HUD to the small details that bring the world to life....or death. The themes and character writing are very sharp, Penny really walks that knife's edge of charming and terrifying, while each of the coworkers has such a distinct voice and character, and speak with each other so naturally. There's a real sense of dread and I found myself constantly on the backfoot when talking to Penny, desperately trying to take control of the conversation and situations and never quite feeling like I could steer outcomes from either.

It's not just the writing that's top notch, the art is a delight as well. The design of the HUD is simple but very well designed- clean and yet claustrophobic. The character designs complement the character writing so well- you can tell each character's personality with one look, and the silhouettes and expressions are so well done. Everyone looks unique and interesting, and it really makes you feel like these are people living in this world. And the CG's are so good!! Absolutely fantastic work from everyone involved in this project, you should be really proud of all of the work you've done to bring this to life.

Thank you for making this game!

this game is amazing!! so well written and the way the UI is used is really clever! super excited for more nth circle releases.

I was recommended this game by a good friend of mine, and despite not being into horror at all, the premise seemed interesting enough for me to try, and I’m so glad I did! 

I played and finished it the very night I got it, it was REALLY good! The storytelling is casual in tone, yet it draws you in with an intricacy that keeps you second guessing every detail. It sits there with you and makes you think about your response. It’s witty, it’s fun, and I gasped so many times and physically had to cover my mouth from the shock at certain portions ( no jump scares tho, which I appreciated so much! This is just pure story telling technique! ) 

The feeling of slow building dread in the background kept me on the edge of my seat, and whenever I felt like it was enough for me and got ready to go to bed, I ended up sitting there another few minutes longer, getting drawn further into the narrative. I really appreciated how much it made me feel for the characters that crossed my screen, though they were with me for but a short time, their dynamic with the player felt natural enough that I genuinely felt bad when I knew what was coming. Beyond that, their character designs were so nice and the art style was half the delight. It’s gorgeous art and so suited to the tone of this. 

I also really appreciated that the gore visuals actually made me laugh out of sheer surprise??? I usually regret playing games like this because it stays stuck in my head due to the creep factor and makes me feel terrible, but this one, it stayed stuck in my head because it was just the perfect amount of creepy but not to the point that it genuinely made me sick to my stomach, which is a huge thing for me! I enjoyed it a lot !!! And it actually made me want to try the other routes just the same. 

Penny was perfectly terrifying but also perfectly sweet at the same time, the psychological tension to this was phenomenal and I could not help but feel every complex emotion going through this. I can’t recommend it enough! To the devs: you guys did a really great job! thanks for the fun !